


Captain, My Captain

by SuedeScripture



Category: Actor RPF, Star Trek RPF
Genre: Acting, Feelings, Gen or Pre-Slash, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-06
Updated: 2013-07-06
Packaged: 2017-12-17 20:28:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/871637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuedeScripture/pseuds/SuedeScripture
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chris has to do the cry. Acting is hard and Zach is the most perceptive thing ever.</p><p>Spoilers for a big STID scene. Not that one, the other one. You'll know which.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Captain, My Captain

The scene is important. Catalytic. It is the reason for the story to bloom around it. JJ had waxed poetic on it in table reads and blocking, the intricacies of the goings-on in Spock's head, in Kirk's head. Not so much going on in Pike's head anymore. 'Epic' was a word JJ liked to use a lot, describing it, and Chris' didn't even have it in him to chide his boss that the word was not actually synonymous with the also commonly misused 'awesome'.

No, Chris was too busy considering the fact that he had to do the cry.

That had been a two and a half weeks ago, before the schedule had been shuffled around to accommodate something or another, so he'd had to sit and stew on it even longer than he was comfortable with.

He spends the time considering all the places he needs to go in his head to bring that out on camera, even gives it a try a few times in the bathroom mirror. It doesn't work. Dry as the fucking Gobi. And ugly. Really fucking ugly.

He thinks about asking Zach. Zach is a) a co-worker and a close friend and confidante who's usually pretty great for bouncing method off of, except the part where b) he had, in fact, lost his father in real life. It isn't a conversational thing. It had been a long-ass time ago, and Zach had even talked about it in interviews with fucking reporters who didn't even know him, so maybe it isn't a completely off-base question, but jesus, no. That subject has never been broached, and won't be. Chris has met Zach's family, seen photo albums. Talking to Zach about his father's death in order to get into fucking character feels like a big goddamn insult. And Chris is a sensitive sort of guy about these things, so chances are the cry would come out during said conversation, so they might as well set the cameras up, get them in costume and get that shit on tape the first and only hypothetical non-existent time they never, ever talked about that.

When the day finally comes, they shoot other scenes in the morning, and JJ chatters about it excitedly. They break for lunch and JJ insists on still talking about it while they eat: Chris, JJ, his AD, Zach, Bruce and the DP in a small conference room just off the soundstage. Some of it repeats, some of it doesn't, most of it goes in Chris' ear and out the other, nervous as he is. The parts he does catch once they're prepped is the way the crew is setting up no less than four cameras around the shot to catch as many angles as possible, so that hopefully, JJ says, they won't be forced to do more than one or two takes.

Zach shoots his scene, and is fucking brilliant, like he always is. Poised, body tautly controlled, and then, when it's called for as Pike dies, a breath of expression, subtle as a breeze, and just as fleeting. The definition of 'awesome', Chris thinks as he watches from the sideline, is not something that is 'cool' or 'epic'. It's something that makes you feel small, and breathless with wonder at its grace, and power, and skill.

Then JJ tells him to take a half hour or so on his own to "do whatever he needs to do", and fuck, the man is at least fantastic for not being that asshole director who expects waterworks at the drop of the clapper and for take after take after take.

It takes three takes. The last two of which he doesn't even have to stop, go wash his face and get re-made-up for. On the third, JJ cuts and then quickly apologizes, asks him not to move, just stay in it for a sec while Zach moves a hair to his left and the lighting is tweaked to reframe, whatever. Chris could diva it out, seriously thinks about pulling a Bale and having a hissy fit, but he doesn't, can't fucking bother to pay attention, he just has to concentrate on the cry. The lump in his throat, the tension in his forehead and jaw, the tears quivering where they'd run to the tip of his nose, how hot his skin feels. People outside his tunnel vision are muffled, calling out instructions, Bruce lying uncomfortably on the couch, one hand rising to scratch an itch on his chin, and Zach kneeling so close beside him in his own crisp uniform, dead silent and unmoving. God, it feels endless.

Somewhere in the commotion while rigs are shifted and wrenched back down, a hand lights softly on the back of his neck, a tiny, tiny tremor in the touch. Chris gasps out a half-swallowed, half-hiccuped sob, that little point of contact giving him just the push he needs until JJ calls everyone to positions again, and then it's gone. "Action!"

Afterwards, Chris flees. He's done for the day, he's gotten his applause and a dozen pats on the back while his face is still stinging, is informed that he's expected to drop his uniform off at Wardrobe, but instead he strides purposefully off the soundstage and into the first empty room he finds: the room where they'd had lunch, mostly empty coffee cups, crumpled napkins, empty takeout boxes with congealed remnants of salad dressings and a decimated box of Krispy Kreme remains on the table. He shuts the door behind him, hops up on the table, and shoves the heels of his hands in his eyes with a whimper, trying to get his shit back together so he can leave the fucking studio without a hundred people asking questions or paps snapping shots that would make angst-ridden headlines.

A minute passes before a soft three-beat tap sounds on the door. He sniffles, scrubs a hand across his face, hurriedly slides off the table and turns his back to the door. "Yeah. What is it?" he calls, expecting a PA or someone other idiot.

The door shushes open and then shut just as quietly, and he darts a backward glance quick enough to recognize the stark black haircut. He sniffs heavily against his snotty nose, forces a smile in his voice and says, "Hey, man."

In a heartbeat, Zach is behind him, long arms wrapping around his chest and waist tightly. Chris takes a big, deep shuddering breath, feeling suddenly supported by the strength of it. Zach's forehead bumps against the back of his skull, his solidness like a wall holding him steady. He lifts a hand to Zach's forearm across his chest and squeezes, and the big hand gripping his shoulder squeezes back. Fuck, he hadn't even thought he'd needed a fucking hug, but it helps, it really does. He sucks in several more deep centering breaths in the embrace of Zach's arms, feeling his chest expanding beneath their binding, and thumbs the rest of the wet from his eyes before he turns around. Zach steps back, arms letting go, but one hand sweeping up to grip the back of his neck.

"You okay?"

"Yeah," Chris murmurs, shaking his head between them, "Fuck."

"Yeah," Zach agrees, both hands going to Chris' shoulders, like he's holding him upright. 

"God, I'm glad that's over," he mutters down at their purposely scuffed up dress shoes and wipes his nose on his uniform sleeve. Wardrobe can deal with some snot, he's earning his pay today.

"You were freaked out about it for awhile. Weeks."

"Yeah," Chris laughs breathlessly. Trust Zach to have seen right through him. His face still feels swollen and red, and he mops at it again, but then Zach stops him, taking both of his hands in his own between their chests. Chris chances a look up at him, hasn't dared look anyone in the face through all this shit until now, and finds a strangely intense and incredibly tender expression there through Zach's greenish makeup under this harsh fluorescent light.

Zach shakes his head once, some sort of denial, his Spock eyebrows and mouth emoting in ways they absolutely never do on camera. "Chris, that was beautiful. Seriously."

"Fuck off, man," Chris looks down again. He should have expected the mockery, it's their whole fucking MO, but it pisses him off a little that Zach won't even give him a second to get his head right before he has at him.

But then Zach's hands are on his face, gentle, his body close. "I'm not even kidding. Chris, look at me. Do I look like I'm jerking you off right now?"

Chris looks, and is stunned by the burn in Zach's eyes, the awe. Zach sighs, moving in close again, bringing their foreheads together and his hands to Chris' neck in a way that feels incredibly intimate. "That was a fucking privilege to watch. You don't even… I couldn't have..."

Zachary Quinto at a loss for words is a rare thing indeed.

Chris blinks against some fresh surge of _something_ , needing to disarm this before it swells to something epic. Hah. "Whatever. I do the ugliest fucking cry of my career and you tell me it's beautiful. Get off me, man." It's said with no bite (he doesn't have any left in him).

Zach doesn't. He slides his hands up into Chris' hair, leans in and speaks close in his ear, "I think everything you are is beautiful. Know that."

He fixes him with a burning look that says nothing less than _You are beloved_ , slides silently away and is gone, shutting the door again with a quiet snick, and leaving Chris in the company of the box of stale doughnuts and his own humility. It feels like the polarity of the whole planet has just shifted, and he has to sit back on the table and think about whether or not he deserves that much loyalty, that kind of love. It leaves him absolutely breathless.


End file.
